Avocado farm🥑 with beautiful view, surrounded by redwoods, 30 minutes from Santa Cruz

California

65 reviews • Updated 7 months ago

I am pleased to announce that after being able to accommodate just one Wwoofer over the past several years, I am now able to accommodate two. Depending on the dates, I will usually have a cottage available for housing rather than a tent. Still a number of openings available for the coming months. If you are interested in a visit please let me know. I am grateful to live in a beautiful place with a wonderful view and a climate that allows me to grow all kinds of delicious and healthy food throughout the year. Initially, my focus was on avocados and growing enough food to feed my family. In recent years that has shifted. In addition to feeding my family, I am growing more and more for our small local market. So the growing beds have increased, there are more avocado trees, as well as a variety of other fruits, and creating healthy baked goods has become a mainstay as well. At this point my aspiration is to develop a replicable model in which a person could make a decent living by growing food and selling it directly to the consumer. Over the years Wwoofers have been an integral part of this farm and I once again am enjoying meeting enthusiastic individuals from around the country and around the world while sharing the wonderful experience of life on this farm. I will consider hosting a WWOOFER for as little as a week or up to a month, generally 3 weeks has proven to be ideal. Activities could include harvesting, mulching, composting, pruning, grafting, planting, digging, weeding, cultivating, irrigation, and perhaps a small construction project . Please let me know if you have other skills such as experience in construction or technical/computer skills as there are a number of potential projects as well. We ask each visitor to contribute up to 6 hours a day, 5.5 days a week. The main house is open for use during the day and evening. Healthy vegetarian food will be provided with most meals prepared for you and access to the kitchen for others. We ask each wwoofer to plan on assisting with the preparation/clean up of shared meals in addition to the other work hours. The homestead/farm is at the end of a private country road surrounded by forests of redwood, madrone and live oaks, located off of a scenic route. It's a 15 minute drive from Watsonville and 30 minutes from Santa Cruz. (No nearby public transportation). Beaches, redwood forest trails and other small farms, are all nearby. I have three children (ages 16, 28 and 30) and seek someone who will be respectful of this quiet family setting. No drugs/alcohol please. We also have a cat and two dogs. When time allows, we enjoy sharing more than meals and garden work - music making? arts ? conversation? board games? what are your interests? This would be a good setting for you if you like to get your hands into the dirt, enjoy being in beautiful natural surroundings, relish the flavors of fresh produce and vegetarian cuisine, are open to being instructed in how to do things in order to obtain best results, and can work independently or as part of a team. Before finalizing any visit request I will request that we speak briefly by phone. Upon arrival all visitors will be asked to show a driver's license or other ID. Thanks for reading this far and I look forward to your application and potential visit. Organic methods: Soil inputs are compost, composted horse manure, rock dust and OMRI certified gypsum. Certifications: I have lived and grown food on this land for 30 years and have never used a chemical fertilizer or pesticide. Unfortunately the cost and time it would take to maintain organic certification make it unviable. I refer to what we do here as Naturally Grown. Internet access available

Learning opportunities

Vegetable farming

Fruit or nut farming

Wild foraging

Aromatic or medicinal plants, teas

Vegetable or fruit preservation

Bakery

Methods or systems

Biological pest control

No-till farming

Permaculture

Regenerative agriculture

Host type

Production farm

2.4 Hectares | 6 Acres

WWOOF-Verified

Accommodation

2 WWOOFers

Campsite

Cabin / Mobile-home

Children not accepted

Pets not accepted

Meals

Vegetarian

Length of stay

1-2 weeks

3-4 weeks

Kenneth (Ken)

Member since 2013

Languages spoken: English, Spanish Response rate: 100% Response time: typically within 1 day

December 2025

Open

Planned visit

Closed

MapLibre | Protomaps | © OpenStreetMap

California

Watsonville Transit Center is the nearest bus station. The nearest bus stops are on route 73 coming from Santa Cruz. The Norman Mineta Airport on San Jose is the nearest airport (SJC)

Reviews

Margaret

United States • November 2025

I spent two months here and I am so grateful for the wholesome and beautiful experience that it was! I was filled with such joy and peace working among the gorgeous plants and soil on the farm, and the beautiful redwoods and mountains around us added to the serenity as well. I felt very welcomed by Ken and enjoyed learning from him throughout the journey. I admire his dedication to sustainability and his vast knowledge on all sorts of things, along with his expansive collection of incredible books! We had many great conversations about pretty much every topic you could think of. I feel thankful for the time I was able to spend with Ken and his family and for the honest and meaningful work we completed each day. I thoroughly enjoyed my experience WWOOFing here and will hopefully be back to visit !

Francisco

United States • November 2025

I had a genuinely good time staying with Ken and his family on their farm. I felt welcome, included, and valued both within the farm life and the local community! The farm is pretty well-established. It focus on balancing sustainable and organic principles with practicality. Ken grows primarily a variety fruit and vegetable crops—with avocados, of course, being one of the highlights! Ken is really knowledgeable and patient, taking the time to explain tasks and the many aspects of the farm that I wanted to know about. Since they've been hosting for over a decade, I think they are a particularly great choice for newcomers to WWOOFing, like myself. I also appreciated how Ken is engaged with local events, which offers a wonderful opportunity to connect with the local community, socialize, and do things beyond farming. The nearby area itself is quiet, peaceful and charming. Definitely recommended—I would love to come again sometime!

Alice

United States • August 2025

I spent a little over 3 weeks at Ken's farm as a first-time WWOOFer! The farm is incredibly beautiful surrounded by redwoods and so close to the ocean. I learned so much about farming all kinds of vegetables and fruits, and it was really inspiring to learn about how Ken and his family created this farm, cottage, and house from scratch. It's definitely work with no shortage of things to do; but I learned so much about what it takes to run a farm, and Ken was always accommodating with scheduling (waking up early to beat the heat), etc. I shared the cottage with another WWOOFer and got along with her really well, but just a note that it is tight quarters! My favorite part of the whole experience was absolutely getting to wake up to the morning fog and the satisfaction of the fruits of labor (especially the before and after of weeding or turning beds). I'd love to come back again!

Ariana

United States • August 2025

This was my first solo WWOOFing experience and it’s safe to say this opportunity to stay and help out has to be one of the most valuable and nourishing experiences of my lifetime. Starting from the drive through the beautiful redwoods forest, I felt an overwhelming sense of joy and relaxation. Ken’s farm fostered even more positive energy from the moment he kindly welcomed me into his beautiful home and life. I’ve learned so much and met so many amazing people. Shortly after arriving on the farm at 6 pm, I got into Ken’s Cyber Truck and he drove us to a local farmer’s potluck party. I enjoyed meeting very kind people, eating abundant delicious food and engaging in interesting conversation. Most mornings, Ken would lead me in an amazing yoga practice. Then we would head outside where I was introduced to various weeds to pull out of the beds, (purslane, vine weed, and mallow). After working hard on the farm, we ate deliciously fresh farm-to-table meals. I enjoyed eating roasted purple cauliflower, making little pizzas out of huge zucchini and of course, lots of avocados and fruit for dessert. Harvesting fruits and veggies farm- to-table style every meal was a major highlight of my experience. I picked copious amounts of avocados, raspberries, purple broccolini, kale, lettuce, tomatoes, plums, and lemons, oranges, and tangerines. Learning the complete process to plant lettuce, beets, radish, purple, cabbage, and cauliflower was fascinating. Some other major highlights included

Eric

United States • May 2025

Hi Kenneth, if you ever get to read this, I would like to thank you for providing me such a great experience! I really appreciate how you were especially accomodating, both when it came to some things I had to take care of during my time there and making sure I was well accomodated. I learned a lot about household farming and how intricate the level of knowledge required to make a successful one work. It was definitely an eye opening experience for me; how everything from the weeds that were to be kept despite taking up space in order to provide the crops nutrition, to the signs of when lettuce became ripe and when it was no longer good, to learning about methods to keep the soil nutritious and intact to create an optium bed of onions on a hill; it all taught me that like many things in life, the practice wasn't as simple as people often think it is and that everybody, although different regarding experiences and knowledge, has something within these that others can learn from to not only make their own life better, but also the world they live in as well. Although my time was cut short due to something that came up, I want you to know that the experiences I had: the lentil soup you made (so good!), the generosity of you and the market friends, the conversations you weren't afraid to go deep, and finally, your dream of building a sustainable household farming lifestyle built for the modern times; will always remain a treasure in my mind and heart.

Sadie

United States • March 2025

This was my first WWOOF experience, and I'm so glad it was! I stayed here for two weeks, but I definitely could've stayed another week or two. Ken was very patient with me, as I went into this with little experience, and didn’t mind explaining things more than once. I learned so much and enjoyed getting a glimpse of what it's like to be a farmer and the hard but very rewarding work it takes. I appreciated all of Ken's delicious and hearty meals, full of fresh veggies. I loved going to yoga on Saturday, meeting other lovely farmers at the potluck, and seeing the local school for the after-school market. This is such a peaceful and beautiful place, I could never get tired of the amazing view. I hope to live in a place like it and lead a similar life one day. Thanks for everything, Ken!